Oh no. Her eyes fastened on the circular tattoo just under his right ear.
“I had no idea you were in here. Sorry. I’m not stalking you.” Heat rose in her cheeks. Just her luck that her ‘rescuer’ was Leadership.
He shrugged and yawned, then casually draped a leg over the arm of his thickly padded blue chair. His easy mannerism came across as arrogance.
“It’s a free Camp. Go where you want.” He ran his bandaged hand through his hair, then leaned back against the cushions.
She shifted in her chair, folding and refolding her hands as she flicked a quick glance at him.
She noticed his bandaged hand. It seems strange that Leadership could have implant issues.
He glanced at his bandaged hand then closed his eyes. Miya chewed her lip. He couldn’t have read her mind. She dismissed it as coincidence, then glanced around the room and saw the couple had gone, leaving the two of them alone. She pulled her legs up underneath her. The hard tube in her back pocket pressed painfully against her, so she pulled it out and placed it in her lap.
“I like it when there’s no one else here,” she whispered as much to herself as anyone else.
He opened his eyes enough to squint at her. “I can leave.”
“No.” A warm blush rose in her cheeks again. Her palms grew clammy as she absently snatched up the tube and began tossing it from hand to hand. “I mean, you run the Camp. Do what you want.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. “I’m Miya. Although, you’d already know that. Your Central Control thing…”
He stared at her for a moment like he was surprised to still be having a conversation with her.
“Jake.”
“What?”
“You’re hard of hearing? I said I’m Jake.”
She bit her lip and stared at her hands. Why did Leadership have to be so rude? She tossed the injection tube from hand to hand, but missed catching it on the third toss. It bounced off the toe of her slipper before rolling towards his chair.
He moved his long, lean body in the chair like he was going to reach for her tube.
She launched herself out of her chair and snatched it up before he could touch it. When she sat back on her heels, he had a strange look on his face like he wanted to say something. He ran a hand through his hair again before leaning back in his chair.
She clenched the tube in her fist and watched him shift. Moisture broke out on her upper lip. She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her white shirt and rubbed her neck.
“Um, I’m going to go now,” she mumbled. “Sorry I interrupted your nap.” She started to get up when he spoke again.
“You’re right.”
Miya raised her eyebrows. “About what?”
“My implant. I had a problem with it.”
“Oh, um…I didn’t ask.”
Jake sat up. “Yeah, you did.” His eyes held no mirth, his face remained deadpan.
“No, I…” Geez. What was she supposed to say? This was getting weird. “I noticed the bandage, but I wasn’t going to ask.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Whatever.”
His arrogance set her teeth on edge. She straightened her shoulders and stuffed the tube into her back pocket. “Well, I should get going. Thanks for helping me earlier, Mr…Jake. Sir.”
She walked to the door, feeling his eyes on her the whole way.
CHAPTER 20
Miya
Ava came every day for the next two days to bring food. Neither of them mentioned the conversation in the Food Bar. Miya’s mind had shifted to worrying about Raine. She hadn’t seen Raine since the night she’d lost her necklace, and it wasn’t like her not to check in. They looked out for each other. Something was wrong. Something horribly wrong.
Miya stared up at the ceiling, listening to the constant drip-and-gurgle noise in the bathroom. Every now and then she’d catch herself looking for the fly, but she never saw the tiny insect again.
Oren came several times a day to administer the injections, and Miya wondered if it was because he didn’t trust her to do them on her own.
The only bright spots in those last three days of recovery from the infection were Nathan’s visits. On the third day, when the infection was no longer visible in the skin around her implant, Nathan came to her room with Paige. Nathan sprawled his lanky frame across Raine’s rumpled bed while Paige sat at the edge of Miya’s bed and kicked her bright pink shoes off. Paige pulled her legs up under her and proceeded to pick fuzz balls from Miya’s blanket.
Miya sat cross-legged on her own bed with a pillow propped behind her. She wiped a hand across her forehead and took another drink from the canister of water she had balanced between her legs. Nathan had tried to make small talk, but all Miya could manage was a few smiles and nods. Paige piled the fuzz she’d harvested from Miya’s blanket into little mounds on the bed beside her. She was starting on her third fuzz mound when Nathan blurted, “When do you think they’ll catch the guy?”
Miya looked over at Nathan as he lay on his back with his hands behind his head, one leg crossed casually over the other.
“Who?”
Nathan and Paige exchanged glances.
Nathan hauled himself off Raine’s bed and came to sit next to Miya. His dark hair stuck up where he had lain on it, lending a comic air to his normally perfect appearance.
“Nate, tell her later.” Paige’s brown eyes flicked from Nathan to Miya.
“Catch what guy?” she asked Nathan again.
Nathan shifted his feet, and his deep inhale echoed in the small room. He looked down at his hands in his lap. He picked at the rough edges of his fingers where he often chewed the bits of skin off, sometimes making himself bleed.
“The suspected murderer the Leadership hired you to track.” He looked at Paige and held his hands palm up like he was surrendering.
Paige shook her head, but said nothing. She just twisted another tiny piece of fluff off the blanket then stacked it with the others.
Miya licked her lips and tasted salt. She was sweating. “Where’d you hear that?” What else do they know?
“Who told you?” she demanded.
“Maybe Paige is right. We shouldn’t talk about this right now.” Nathan spoke softly, still looking down at his hands.
Paige finally looked up from her tiny fuzz hills. Her heart-shaped face pinched in frustration. “Nathan looked at your biofeed.”
Miya’s stomach twisted. This morning’s breakfast threatened to make a reappearance.
Miya gripped the blanket in both fists, knocking the water canister over in her lap.
“Who gave you permission to look at my biofeed, Nathan?” How could he have when she didn’t have one?
“The Leadership. It’s not permission exactly. They made me a deal. They wouldn’t execute me for talking about escaping if I agreed to report to them information about your biofeed.” Nathan’s voice sounded small and sad. He scratched his eyebrow with a thumbnail and looked at Miya.
Every particle of air seemed to have been sucked out of the small room, leaving it a space void of oxygen, filled with only colors and shapes that spun and swirled. Miya choked as she tried to inhale. Her heart pounded in her chest and the edges of her vision grew dark. A trickle of sweat rolled down her back and soaked into her thin shirt that suddenly felt too tight. She tugged on the front of her shirt.
Nathan stood. “Look, Mi. I’m sorry. I’ve felt so guilty about it. I’ve wanted to tell you for days, but there’s always Leadership around you lately.”
Her hands shook, her ears burned, and her throat felt as though she’d swallowed fire.
Nathan leaned close and whispered, “I know they made a deal with you too. It’s okay, no one else knows.”
Miya swallowed hard, vaguely aware of the icy water that had soaked into her nightclothes.
“I doubt that,” she said pointedly.
Nathan straightened and shrugged his shoulders. His face went red a
gain.
“Tell me this, Nathan. If the Leadership made a deal with you about giving them info about my biofeed, does that mean they can’t access it through their Central Command?” Miya asked.
“I guess so.” Nathan shrugged. “You raise an interesting point, Miss Thorne.” He tapped his chin and looked up at the ceiling.
“But Leadership can still read Invalidates’ biofeeds, right? Even though Invalidates have no privileges.”
“Right.” Why wouldn’t Nathan look at her?
“But I’m different.”
Nathan picked at his nails again. “Yes, you are. You have no status like an Invalidate, yet you retain all the privileges of a fully online citizen.”
“I wonder why.” Miya sighed. She wished she could just ask someone in Leadership, but they’d never tell her.
Paige, who had been quietly pulling at the blanket fuzz, spoke up. “Nate says if anyone can track the guy, it’s you.”
Miya blinked at him. “Why would you say that?”
Nathan threw a pointed look at Paige. “I saw your dream sequence. I noticed you’ve had dreams about someone who matches this guy’s description.” His cheeks blazed red.
“You what?” If the pressure in Miya’s head increased by one more ounce, her head would explode.
“It’s okay, Mi! I didn’t tell them that part. I swear the Leadership doesn’t know!”
Paige let out a tiny gasping sound. Her eyes widened. “You don’t have prescribed dreams?”
Nathan gestured to Paige, his brows furrowed. “Let’s go.”
“Wait!” she squeaked. “My shoes!”
Nathan sighed and snatched Paige’s shoes off the floor before tossing them to her. He walked behind Paige to the door, then looked back at Miya with a troubled look.
“I’m sorry, Miya.” He offered Miya a small smile before the door slid open. The apologetic way he looked at her told her he knew—he knew—about the mark on her chest and that he’d lied when he said he didn’t tell Leadership.
Raine’s last words echoed in her head: Nathan’s mouth is going to cause trouble one day. Miya shivered at their accuracy.
CHAPTER 21
Miya
Miya couldn’t remain in her tiny room any longer. She didn’t care about Oren’s warning to stay in bed until she’d completely recovered. She needed to get away.
Colors swirled in and out as everything spun. For several moments she stood with one hand on the wall to brace herself.
Her eyes darted around the corridor. Advertisements reminding people to be health conscious flickered on all the screens in the hallway as far as she could see, as well as endorsements for the Leadership and all they stood for: the right for people to breathe air unpolluted by outside toxins, the right to enjoy perfection, the right to live free.
Live free.
Her chest heaved. Miya clutched her throat.
Her eyes fell on a distorted reflection of herself in the shiny wall across from her. Her pin glistened in the artificial light. When did everything begin screaming “artificial”? Even her own face had been manufactured in an artificial womb with genetic precision. She suddenly envied Raine’s disappearance (escape?), then shivered, hating herself for thinking that. She stared at her reflection on the opposite wall as Nathan’s words swirled in her head: I hope you find the guy.
She reached out to touch her reflection, and the wall rippled beneath her fingertips. Suddenly she found herself staring into bright blue eyes that weren’t her own. She frowned. The girl in the reflection frowned. She traced a finger along the girl’s blond hair that hung to her waist in golden waves. She could’ve been looking at herself except the girl’s skin was bronze like Ava’s, and her hair was blond not red.
What if…
Miya dropped her hand. The words were so loud they seemed to be spoken out loud, but she hadn’t said anything. And she was alone.
Miya turned and walked as fast as she could, away from the silvery walls and the unsettling reflection.
Miya dragged a hand down her face, then stepped into the Sun Room. Muted light slanted across the walls. Midmorning had always been her favorite time of day to visit the Sun Room, since it was often empty. Besides, it was the only room that provided an escape from the Camp’s shiny tubelike corridors that could possibly reflect that image of her strange twin with the rippling white-gold hair.
Soft shades of lemon yellow and pale blue accented the room’s white. The thickly padded, chunky furniture, fluffy throw pillows and massive artificial flower arrangements scattered throughout the room had always cheered her, but the last couple of visits, everything seemed so garish and fake.
Miya leaned against the doorway and let her eyes wander over the whitewashed walls. It was the only room without advertisements on massive wall-sized screens.
Miya blew a lungful of air into her bangs and pinched the bridge of her nose. Slight movement in the corner of her eye arrested her attention. She bit her bottom lip when she spotted Jake sitting in the same chair as before. The moment she saw him, she knew she had to ask him something she’d never dare ask a member of the Leadership, including Oren.
His dark head rested against the back of the chair, and his hands were folded across his chest. She began to walk towards him, then stopped. Her breath caught when she spotted the white bandage wrapped around his left wrist and hand. Seeing him sitting there, looking so relaxed, made him look almost normal. Like he wasn’t part of Leadership. Like he didn’t represent the system she secretly hated.
She walked quietly towards him, her stomach clenching into a hard knot. She paused a few steps behind his chair, then reached into her pocket and withdrew the injector. She held it in her hand like a weapon.
She walked past Jake’s chair and accidentally brushed his elbow that hung off the armrest, but he didn’t move. She slouched into the chair opposite him and waited, twisting and untwisting the cap on her injector. Deliberately making as much noise as she could. Click. Click. Click.
Jake’s eyes remained closed.
She licked her dry lips and hoped he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart. She studied his face. He was good-looking, but there was something else. Something deeper than just his appearance that attracted her. Her eyes fell on his bandage again. Her face flamed when she realized what drew her to him. Beneath the bandage was a faulty implant like hers. And that small imperfection made him the most real thing in the entire Camp. Blood was real. Wounds were real, and so were the imperfections that the Leadership sought to quickly remove from society.
She bounced her legs up and down and played with the injector until she couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“Hey,” she whispered. His chest rose and fell with even breaths, but she could sense he was awake. His lashes fluttered ever so briefly.
“Hey yourself,” he mumbled and rubbed one eye with his knuckle. But he kept his eyes closed.
“I, uh…I want to ask you something.” She was glad he wasn’t looking at her.
She concentrated on keeping her hands still in her lap. It was hard not to fidget in his presence.
“If someone wanted to leave the Camp, how would they do it?”
Jake’s eyes flew open, but he didn’t move. He looked at her from under his dark lashes. Threat lingered there, but it was too late to take her question back.
After a long pause Jake said, “They wouldn’t. It’s impossible.”
Miya blew a long breath out. “C’mon, Jake. I’m pretty sure you know how to get out of here.”
He sat up. His eyes held hers for a long moment. “Why? Why do you think I’d know anything about escaping an airtight Camp?”
She fought to keep control of her voice. “You’re a member of Leadership. You know everything.”
Jake’s eyes bounced away from hers. “Why do you keep saying that? I get the sense you’re throwing my status in my face. But I can’t change who I am, just like you can’t change who you are.”
His
comment stung, but she was positive there was no way he could truly know her status. He wouldn’t be able to read her biofeed. She was as much of a mystery to him as he was to her. They were on equal ground.
“I’m not throwing anything in your face. I’m trying to get some answers.” Miya leaned forward in her chair. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from rattling and gripped the injection tube even harder.
His eyes flashed icy cold. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he studied her.
Her fingers ached from the grip she had on the hard plastic tube. She took a deep breath and held it for a second, waiting for his response. He could arrest her for talking like this. He could have her executed. She questioned whether she had a deep suicidal desire that was just now surfacing, but quickly dismissed the thought.
Jake narrowed his eyes. “You’d better watch what you say.” He started to get up, but Miya reached out. Without thinking, she touched his knee. He cut his eyes to her, then to her hand still on his leg. A shiver crawled up her arm as she waited for possible punishment. She’d seen it before: Leadership touched three fingers to the mark below their right ear and a thrum of electricity knocked the offender off their feet.
But the punishment never came. Of course it wouldn’t. She was offline. Unreachable. Invincible. Almost.
Jake’s hand closed over hers, and for one frenzied moment she thought he might leave it there. But then he brushed her hand off his leg like it was a piece of lint. His face was so close to hers that she could see the green of his irises were actually rimmed in dark blue. And the corners of his eyes had the tiniest lines.
Her heart banged against her rib cage. She held her hands in her lap with the injector wedged between her thighs. He just sat on the edge of the chair, eyes locked on hers.
She knew her cheeks were blazing red. And worse, she felt her ears burning. “Sorry. I just…” I just thought you’d help me. Like you did before.
Jake shifted in his chair and raised his eyebrows. “That was different.”
The hair on the back of Miya’s neck stood on end. It was happening again. “I didn’t say anything.” She took a deep breath.
“You did. Just not with words.” Jake cast his eyes around the room. His forehead remained uncreased, his mouth a straight line. He was the picture of a militant Leadership soldier except that she saw him. In the unflinching way he touched her. In the easy way his emerald eyes held hers. To anyone else he would appear imposing, formidable, but his touch gave him away. He might be Leadership on the outside, but he was something else entirely on the inside.